From the window, above the clatter of pots and the slamming of cabinets, Francis was singing, as though it was the happiest song in the world: 'We are the little black sheep who have gone astray . . . Baa baa baa . . . Gentlemen songsters off on a spree . . . Doomed from here to eternity . . .

You are - all your experience just kind of accumulates, and the novel takes a richness of its own simply because it has the weight of all those years that one's put into it.

For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.

In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.

Children love secret club houses. They love secrecy even when there's no need for secrecy

If I'm not working, I'm not happy. That's it. That's the prerequisite for me for happiness.

Still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life.